I can’t exactly believe I am doing this, but for this first post, I will begin by quoting the Bible:
Now God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man (Genesis 2:3).
Why did I quote the Bible, an action that I do not naturally take? I quoted the Bible (the translated Torah, specifically) because – for better or for worse – this old testament often serves as a moral code for religious people. While the Torah teaches kindness, love, and the importance of family, it can also teach patriarchal values. These values begin with the creation of man that is followed by the creation of woman. According to the first few founding verses of the Torah, Eve was created to serve Adam. Eve became Adam’s “suitable helper,” rendering her subservient from the beginning. Because Adam and Eve are the first and founding people in Judaism, the role of Adam is often generalized to be the male role in society and the role of Eve is generalized to be the female role in society.
These roles are not complex. The story of Adam and Eve is a simple one: God makes Adam. God makes Eve for Adam. They have sex. Eve meets a snake. The snake tells Eve to eat an apple from a forbidden tree. Eve obeys. Eve gives the apple to Adam. God finds out. They are exiled from Eden, etc. Though this story may be simple, the centuries of interpretations and connotations are anything but. Adam is rendered innocent and seduced. Eve is rendered a temptress, a seducer, and (oh no!) a woman who sins by seeking out knowledge.
The purpose of this blog, however, is not to quote Torah or analyze to death biblical characters who may or may not have existed. The purpose of this blog is to challenge the stereotypes and roles cast upon the Jewish women of the past and present. I simply thought that, for this first post, I would reference the first Jewish woman…and partially explain the title of this forum for Jewish feminism.
There is plenty more to come and I am eager to hear what you have to say in comments!
To be truthful, this post sounds more like a Christian reading of Genesis than anything I’ve encountered from a Rabbi’s or Jewish scholar’s mouth. Whenever I study the beginning of the Torah with a Jewish group, even groups composed of more traditional Jews, I’m always struck by how completely different the understanding is from the Christian interpretation that we think of when we say “Adam and Eve.”
Interesting. I did use My Jewish Learning to help me with this interpretation so I’m curious as to the core differences between the Christian and Jewish interpretations when it comes to the creation of Eve. I myself am not too familiar with reading Torah so I’m just wondering how the interpretations differ when it comes to Eve being created from Adam’s rib?
I’m pulling from memory here (I’m at work and don’t have all my various literature with me), so anyone else can jump in and correct me, but the first thing to note about the creation story is that there are 2 – in Judaism, the first one, Genesis 1, is generally understood as the creation of man and woman at the same time, as a hermaphrodite.
There are a few different views about how to reconcile that with the creation story in Genesis 2, which is where God fashions Adam out of soil and breathes life into him and then makes Eve from Adam’s rib – the one I’ve heard most often is that the hermaphrodite is split into man and woman, the woman runs off (this is where the story of Lilith later comes from), and then God comes up with a new companion. I’ve also heard, although not as frequently, that God pulls the feminine out of the hermaphrodite (as demonstrated by taking the rib) and then you have man and woman.
Also, the idea of Eve being a temptress is really a Christian thing, especially since a) the satan in Judaism is God’s agent whose job is to tempt (sort of like a test to pass), b) God is more disappointed in Adam than in Eve, since God never told Eve directly to not eat the apple (she only heard 2nd hand from Adam), and c) Jews don’t believe in original sin, so Eve didn’t doom humankind or get punished with childbirth pains (the text in Genesis about this just means that humans just now have to live as humans, with pain and death and all the fun stuff that they were shielded from before).
More of a general observation than a textural analysis (and more in line with what your blog’s goal seems to be): even most traditional Jews just do not read Genesis as requiring women to be subservient. They view it more as separate but equalness where there is genuine equality – man and woman are partners with different duties, and the duties are all equally necessary and important. My reason for being Reform as opposed to a more traditional Jew is that I don’t believe you can achieve this in the world we live in, as nice as it sounds on paper – our world elevates man, and then this ends up flavoring how our religions are practiced. In fact, traditional Judaism seems to go a bit woman-on-pedestal, with statements such as man being lesser than woman because man was created from dirt, man can’t function on his own without woman, a more literal translation of a line from Genesis about woman ruling through man instead of being under him, etc.
[...] January 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment I’m a little late on this, but our own Shira has launched a new blog devoted to Jewish feminism: from the rib? (Is that a great blog name or what? Context here.) [...]